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Loading...If you’re wondering why your garbage wasn’t picked up on Monday or why your bank was closed or why federal state, county, and city offices were closed — Monday was the day to observe the new state holiday, Juneteenth National Freedom Day — not to be confused with July 4, which remains Independence Day.
Congress passed legislation in 2021 that made Juneteenth — the name is a mashup of June and 19 — a national holiday. The Utah State Legislature followed suit in 2022 and passed legislation declaring June 19 to be a state holiday.
Like some other federal and state holidays that are set for a specific date, if the holiday falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, it is observed on the preceding Monday.
If a holiday falls on a weekend, the holiday is observed on the following Monday.
With June 19 falling on Sunday in 2022, Juneteenth was officially observed on Monday, June 20.
Juneteenth is a new state and federal holiday, although it has been celebrated in some places in the United States since 1865, especially Texas.
Texas experienced no large-scale battles during the Civil War and it lacked a significant presence of Union soldiers. As a result Texas became a refuge for slave holders with over 250,000 enslaved people, according to History.com.
Two months after the surrender of the Confederate Army, there were still slaves in Texas.
Union Army General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865 with around 2,000 Union soldiers.
Granger read a general order declaring that slaves were now free:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor…”
This was almost two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Granger’s announcement is considered the end of legal slavery in Texas, the last state with slavery.
The 13th amendment to the United State Constitution, which abolished slavery, was ratified in December 1865.
Since 1865, Juneteenth has been celebrated to commemorate the day enslaved Black Americans in Texas learned of their emancipation.
